Happy Wednesday, everyone! I hope you're all adjusting better than I am to the time change. I could've slept another six hours or so today. Haha. So, we'll be talking about book marketing, scams, and what NOT to do. I saw a very timely post on Facebook the other day where someone was talking about getting taken advantage of, and I thought it might be a good topic for a post. Now, here we are!
If you're ready to dive in, grab your drink and get comfy. Let's rock and roll!
I think we'll start with what NOT to do when marketing your books.
My top nine:
- Don't throw spaghetti. This means don't just toss everything at the wall and hope something sticks. Do your homework, track things, and know where your efforts will pay off before diving in.
- Don't hire an expert who's never marketed your genre. Self explanatory, no? Readers of different genres enjoy different things outside the book world. Your expert should know where to find them.
- Don't spend all your free time marketing. Break it up, or you'll experience burnout. You won't even have the will to write any longer. It will destroy you.
- Don't pay for courses unless you've fully vetted the person giving them AND they write in your genre (see #2). Assure you've checked their sales ranks (now and past), and see if they give you a glimpse into their method before you pay.
- Don't expect friends and family to share or help you. If they do, that's great, but nothing will kill your vibe/love for your friends and family faster than them not living up to your expectations. Maybe they meant to and didn't, but that's neither here nor there. Just no.
- Don't try to do everything yourself. Whether this means hiring someone or finding automated tools to help you along the way, you're one person, and a well-marketed book needs many.
- Don't quit. It can be daunting when you've spent hours and hours doing research on keywords, posting online, and running mail campaigns only to get one sale. I get it, I do, but don't quit. If you quit, there's no way you'll succeed.
- Don't hire anyone without a contract in place. Ever. This protects you AND them, and it should have a clause stating that they're not eligible for any of your profits from the sale of your books.
- Don't talk about hot-button topics in public. Just don't. Sure, you may win some folks over now, but the ones who leave will never come back. Maybe just be a good person in general. *gasp* Oh my gosh! Yeah, it's possible.
Now that you know the don'ts, what are the dos?
Easily, they're the opposite of the don'ts. If we go a little deeper...
Every marketing person isn't the same, so be sure you're checking out who you hire. If you have a PA, then you should be meeting with that person at least once a week to go over numbers. Make sure they're doing what you pay them to do, and assure their role was outlined from day one (contracts). At that point, you're an overseer as well as a doer. If they can't operate independently, you should hire someone new.
Make sure you get along with the person. I cannot stress how important this is. You'll have to work with them weekly, so you better enjoy his or her personality. They need to own up when they make mistakes and be prepared to apologize, with a plan on how to do it better moving forward. We all screw up, but when you're paying someone to do a job, that's your time and money, and you're owed a resolution.
In today's landscape, you may also consider your alignments. Be on the same page. You don't need bad blood down the road because you have differences of opinions.
Not least on this chatty list at the bottom: Be careful. There are crazy people out there. You're a public figure. Maybe you write under a pen name, but if you do, and you write things that may be considered taboo, do your level best to protect your anonymity. Maybe you're not that popular, and you think you'll be okay. No. Protect yourself as you can.
Do you guys have any tips to add to either of these lists? I'd love your feedback! Drop me a note below.
I hope you enjoyed this post and that it helped you (even if just a little). Be sure and come on back Friday. We'll be digging into yet another AI model. :)
Well, that's all for today, folks!
Until next time, WRITE ON!
Jo
